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Reflections:

Mary, Our Mother Sctn.:

Mary/The Passion & Death of Jesus

Wisdom of the Popes, Saints, Theologians, Other...

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"And
Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this
child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many is
Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; And thy own
soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may
be revealed." (Lk. 2:34-35)

"Now
there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's
sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen. When Jesus therefore
had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he
saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith
to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the
disciple took her to his own." (Jn. 19:25-27)

"Mary's heart was pierced in the
fulfillment of her Son's mission."

"As
the sun surpasses all the stars in luster, so the sorrows of Mary
surpass all the tortures of the martyrs." (St. Basil)

"Mary not only leads us to the Mystery of
the Cross like a teacher; she also participates in that Mystery.
She suffers with Jesus and suffers with us." (Pope John Paul
II)

"In
martyrs, the intensity of their love mitigated their sufferings,
but with Mary it was different; the more she loved, the more she
suffered, and the greater was her martyrdom." {Richard of St.
Victor}

"Oh!
In what floods of tears, in what an abyss of sorrow is she
whelmed, that Virgin Mother, as mourning she beholds her Son taken
down from the blood-stained tree and laid in her arms!"
(Liturgical Year)

"It
was in the presence and under the very gaze of Mary that the
divine sacrifice of our redemption was consummated; she took part
in it by giving to the world and nourishing the divine Victim, she
the Queen of Martyrs." (Pope St. Pius X)

"And
here Jesus teaches us how to die, for if He would have His Mother
with Him in the hour of His great surrender, then how shall we
dare to miss saying daily: 'Pray for us sinners, now, and at the
hour of our death. Amen.'?" (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)

"She was so closely united to the sacrifice
of her divine Son, from the virginal conception of Jesus Christ to
his sorrowful Passion, that she was called by some fathers of the
Church, Virgin Priest." (Pope Pius IX)

"I should say rightly that the Mother of God was both virgin and
martyr, although she ended her days in peace, wherefore: Thine own
soul a sword hath pierced - namely for her Son's death."
(St. Jerome, Doctor of the Church)

"Nor was Mary less than was befitting the
Mother of Christ. When the apostles fled, she stood before the
Cross and with reverent gaze beheld her Son's wounds, for she
waited not for her Child's death, but the world's salvation."
(St. Ambrose, Doctor of the Church, 396 A.D.)

"[W]hat
anguish unutterable must have filled the soul of this Mother, when
raising up her eyes, she sees the mangled Body of her Son,
stretched upon the cross, with His face all covered with blood,
and His head wreathed with a crown of thorns!" (Gueranger)

"While
the soldiers were doing their cruel work, He was thinking
anxiously of His mother: These things therefore the soldiers did.
Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's
sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene." (St.
Theophylact)

"As [Mary] suffered and almost died
together with her suffering and dying Son, so she surrendered her
mother's rights over her Son for the salvation of the human race.
And to satisfy the justice of God she sacrificed her Son, as well
as she could, so that it may be justly said that she together with
Christ has redeemed the human race." (Pope Benedict XV,
"Inter Sodalica")

"Look
at the holy and immaculate Mother; she holds in her lap the
lifeless body of her divine Son. Could you possibly imagine that
the sorrowful Mother would murmur against God? That she would ask
the reason for such suffering? We would not have been redeemed, if
that Mother had not seen her Son die in torment and there would not
have been for us any possibility of salvation." (Pope Pius
XII)

"The blood of Christ shed for our sake, and
those members in which he offers to his Father the wounds he
received as the price of our liberty are no other than the flesh
and blood of the Virgin: 'The flesh of Jesus is the flesh of Mary,
and however much it was exalted in the glory of his resurrection,
nevertheless the nature of his flesh derived from Mary remained
and still remains the same.' (St. Augustine)" (Pope Leo XIII)

"Though
there were other women by, He makes no mention of any of them, but
only of His mother, to show us that we should specially honor our
mothers. Our parents indeed, if they actually oppose the truth,
are not even to be known: but otherwise we should pay them all
attention, and honor them above all the world beside: When Jesus
therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he
loved, He says to His mother, Woman, behold your son!" (St.
John Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church)

"Heavens!
what honor does He pay to the disciple; who however conceals his
name from modesty. For had he wished to boast, he would have added
the reason why he was loved, for there must have been something
great and wonderful to have caused that love. This is all He says
to John; He does not console his grief, for this was a time for
giving consolation. Yet was it no small one to be honored with
such a charge, to have the mother of our Lord, in her affliction,
committed to his care by Himself on His departure: Then says He to
the disciple, Behold your mother!" (St. John Chrysostom,
Doctor of the Church)

"The
silence is again broken: Jesus speaks His third word, and it is to
His Mother; but He does not call her by that dear name, for it
would redouble her pain: 'Woman!' He says, 'behold thy son!' Then
looking upon John, He says to him: 'Son! Behold thy Mother!' What
an exchange was here for Mary! But oh! What a blessing it brought
upon John, and through him to all mankind: The Mother of God was
made our Mother!...[L]et us, today, gratefully receive this last
testament of our Jesus, who, having by His Incarnation made us the
adopted children of His heavenly Father, now, in His dying
moments, makes us children of His own blessed Mother." (Gueranger)

"Thus
[at the Cross] we find ourselves at the very center of the
fulfillment of the promise contained in the Proto-gospel: the
'seed of the woman...will crush the head of [Satan]' (cf. Gen.
3:15). By his redemptive death Jesus Christ conquers the evil of
sin and death at its very roots. It is significant that, as he
speaks to his mother from the Cross, he calls her 'woman' and says
to her: 'Woman, behold your son!' Moreover, he had addressed her
by the same term at Cana too (cf. Jn. 2:4). How can one doubt that
especially now, on Golgotha, this expression goes to the very
heart of the mystery of Mary, and indicates the unique place which
she occupies in the whole economy of salvation?" (Pope John
Paul II)

"Of
these virtues the life of Mary bears in all its phases the
brilliant character; but they attained their highest degree of
splendor at the time when she stood by her dying Son. Jesus is
nailed to the cross, and the malediction is hurled against Him
that 'He made Himself the Son of God' (John xix., 7). But she
unceasingly recognized and adored the divinity in Him. She bore
His dead body to the tomb, but never for a moment doubted that He
would rise again. Then the love of God with which she burned made
her a partaker in the sufferings of Christ and the associate in
His passion; with him moreover, as if forgetful of her own sorrow,
she prayed for the pardon of the executioners although they in
their hate cried out: 'His blood be upon us and upon our children'
(Matth. xxvii., 25)." (Pope St. Pius X, "Ad Diem Illum
Laetissimum", 1904)

"Thirty-three
years ago Mary looked down at His sacred face; now He looks down
at her. In Bethlehem heaven looked up into the face of earth; now
the roles are reversed. Earth looks up into the face of heaven -
but a heaven marred by the scars of earth. He loved her above all
the creatures of earth, for she was His Mother and the Mother of
us all. He saw her first on coming to earth; He shall see her
last on leaving it. Their eyes meet, all aglow with life, speaking
a language all their own. There is a rupture of a heart through a
rapture of love, then a bowed head, a broken heart. Back to the
hands of God He gives, pure and sinless, His spirit, in loud and
ringing voice that trumpets eternal victory. And Mary stands alone
a Childless Mother. Jesus is dead!" (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)

"With
this fourth dolor no word is spoken; one sees only the shimmering
steel of the Sword, for terror is speechless. The Sword He drove
into His Own heart made Him shed drops of blood, like beads in the
Rosary of redemption over every inch of that Jerusalem roadway;
but the Sword He drove into her soul made her identify herself
with His redemptive sufferings, forced her to tread the streets
over her own Son's blood. His wounds bled; hers did not. Mothers,
seeing their sons suffer, wish it could be their own blood instead
of their sons' that is shed. In her case, it was her blood that He
shed. Every crimson drop of that blood, every cell of that flesh,
she had given to Him. Jesus had no human father. It was always her
blood that He was shedding; it was only her blood that she was
treading." (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)

"We
stand silently on Golgotha. At the foot of the Cross is Mary,
Mater dolorosa: this woman who is heartbroken with grief, but
prepared to accept the death of her Son. The sorrowful Mother
recognizes and accepts in the sacrifice of Jesus the Father's will
for the redemption of the world. Of Mary the Second Vatican
Council says: 'The Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of
faith, and loyally persevered in her union with her Son unto the
Cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan (cf. Jn
19:25), suffering grievously with her only-begotten Son. There she
united herself with a maternal heart to his sacrifice, and
lovingly consented to the immolation of this Victim which she
herself had brought forth. Finally, the same Christ Jesus, dying
on the Cross, gave her as a mother to his disciple. Thus he did
when he said: 'Woman, behold your son'" (Pope John Paul II,
1998)

"At
the moment of death, Jesus gives his own Mother to this disciple.
John 'took her to his own home.' He took her as the first witness
to the mystery of the Incarnation. And he, as an evangelist,
expressed in the most profound yet simple way the truth about the
Word who 'became flesh and dwelt among us' (Jn 1.14), the truth
about the Incarnation and the truth about Emmanuel. And so, by
taking 'to his own home' the Mother who stood beneath her Son's
cross, he also made his own all that was within her on Golgotha:
the fact that she 'suffered grievously with her only-begotten Son,
uniting herself with a maternal heart in his sacrifice, and
lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim that she
herself had brought forth.' All this - the superhuman experience of
the sacrifice of our redemption, inscribed in the heart of Christ
the Redeemer's own Mother - was entrusted to the man who in the
Upper Room received the power to make this sacrifice present
through the priestly ministry of the Eucharist." (Pope John
Paul II)

"I
bless, praise, and highly commend you, holy and immaculate Virgin
Mary, for taking your sorrowful station at the foot of Jesus'
Cross, where you stood for a long time careworn and afflicted,
transfixed by the sword of sorrow, as foretold by Simeon; for your
many tears, which you abundantly shed; for the great loyalty and
unwavering allegiance you manifested to your dying Son in his most
dire moment; for the acute heartbreak you felt the instant he
died; for your tear-filled countenance when you saw him hanging
dead before your eyes; for your blessed embrace when in your
Mother's arms you received him from the Cross and amid laments
clasped him to your breast; for your dolorous journey to the
sepulcher, walking behind those who bore that sacred corpse and
seeing it placed in a tomb with a large stone sealing it; for your
rueful return from the tomb and your entering your home where many
of the faithful had gathered, and there you again bitterly
bewailed the death of your loving Son. Inasmuch as everyone's eyes
were upon you, they too broke out into tears." (Thomas a
Kempis)

"In
the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus is in an agony; in the
judgment-hall, where He is scourged, crowned with thorns,
condemned to death, not there do we find Mary. But she knew
beforehand all these agonies; she knew and saw them. When she
professed herself the handmaid of the Lord for the mother's
office, and when, at the foot of the altar, she offered up her
whole self with her Child Jesus - then and thereafter she took her
part in the laborious expiation made by her Son for the sins of
the world. It is certain, therefore, that she suffered in the very
depths of her soul with His most bitter sufferings and with His
torments. Moreover, it was before the eyes of Mary that was to be
finished the Divine Sacrifice for which she had borne and brought
up the Victim. As we contemplate Him in the last and most piteous
of those Mysteries, there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother,
who, in a miracle of charity, so that she might receive us as her
sons, offered generously to Divine Justice her own Son, and died
in her heart with Him, stabbed with the sword of sorrow."
(Pope Leo XIII, "Iucunda Semper Expectatione", 1894)

"Moreover
it was not only the prerogative of the Most Holy Mother to have
furnished the material of His flesh to the Only Son of God, Who
was to be born with human members (S. Bede Ven. L. Iv. in Luc. xl.),
of which material should be prepared the Victim for the salvation
of men; but hers was also the office of tending and nourishing
that Victim, and at the appointed time presenting Him for the
sacrifice. Hence that uninterrupted community of life and labors
of the Son and the Mother, so that of both might have been uttered
the words of the Psalmist 'My life is consumed in sorrow and my
years in groans' (Ps xxx., 11). When the supreme hour of the Son
came, beside the Cross of Jesus there stood Mary His Mother, not
merely occupied in contemplating the cruel spectacle, but
rejoicing that her Only Son was offered for the salvation of
mankind, and so entirely participating in His Passion, that if it
had been possible she would have gladly borne all the torments
that her Son bore (S. Bonav. 1. Sent d. 48, ad Litt. dub. 4). And
from this community of will and suffering between Christ and Mary
she merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost
world (Eadmeri Mon. De Excellentia Virg. Mariae, c. 9) and
Dispensatrix of all the gifts that Our Savior purchased for us by
His Death and by His Blood." (Pope St. Pius X, "Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum",
1904 A.D.)

"Mary
the mother of our Lord stood before the cross of her Son. None of
the Evangelists hath told me this except John. The others have
related how that at our Lord's Passion the earth quaked, the
heaven was overspread with darkness, the sun fled, the thief was
taken into paradise after confession. John hath told us, what the
others have not, how that from the cross whereon He hung, He
called to His mother. He thought it a greater thing to show Him
victorious over punishment, fulfilling the offices of piety to His
mother, than giving the kingdom of heaven and eternal life to the
thief. For if it was religious to give life to the thief, a much
richer work of piety it is for a son to honor his mother with such
affection. Behold, He says, your son; behold your mother. Christ
made His Testament from the cross, and divided the offices of
piety between the Mother and the disciples. Our Lord made not only
a public, but also a domestic Testament. And this His Testament
John sealed a witness worthy of such a Testator. A good testament
it was, not of money, but of eternal life, which was not written
with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God: My tongue is the
pen of a ready writer. Mary, as became the mother of our Lord,
stood before the cross, when the Apostles fled and With pitiful
eyes beheld the wounds of her Son. For she looked not on the death
of the Hostage, but on the salvation of the world; and perhaps
knowing that her Son's death would bring this salvation, she who
had been the habitation of the King, thought that by her death she
might add to that universal gift" (St. Ambrose, Doctor of the
Church)

"Whilst
the entire populace is on the move towards Calvary, shouting out
their blasphemous insults at her Jesus, will His Mother keep away,
she that bore Him in her womb...? Shall His enemies be eager to
glut their eyes with the cruel sight, and His own Mother be afraid
to be near Him? The air resounded with the yells of the mob.
Joseph of Arimathea, the noble counselor, was not there, neither
was the learned Nicodemus; they kept at home, grieving over what
was done. The crowd that went before and after the divine Victim
was made up of wretches without hearts, saving only a few who were
seen to weep as they went along; they were women; Jesus saw them,
and spoke to them. And if these women from mere sentiments of
veneration, or, at most, of gratitude, thus testified their
compassion, would Mary do no less? Could she bear to be elsewhere
than close to her Jesus? Our motive for insisting so much upon
this point is that we may show our detestation of that school of
modern rationalism, which, regardless of the instincts of a
mother's heart and of all tradition, has dared to call in
question the meeting of Jesus and Mary on the way to Calvary.
These systematic contradictors are too prudent to deny that Mary
was present when Jesus was crucified; the Gospel is too explicit:
Mary stood near the cross (Jn. xix. 25): but they would persuade
us that, whilst the daughters of Jerusalem courageously walked
after Jesus, Mary went up to Calvary by some secret path! What a
heartless insult to the love of the incomparable Mother. No; Mary,
who is, by excellence, the valiant woman (Prov. xxxi 10), was with
Jesus as He carried His cross." (Gueranger)

"All
the fatherless, motherless, sonless, husbandless, and wifeless
griefs that ever tore at the hearts of human beings were now
bearing down on the soul of Mary. The most any human being ever
lost in a bereavement was a creature, but Mary was burying the Son
of God. It is hard to lose a son or a daughter, but it is harder
to bury Christ. To be motherless is a tragedy, but to be
Christless is hell. In real love, two hearts do not meet in sweet
slavery to one another; rather there is the melting of two hearts
into one. When death comes, there is not just a separation of two
hearts but rather the rending of the one heart. This was
particularly true of Jesus and Mary. As Adam and Eve fell through
the pleasure of eating one apple, so Jesus and Mary were united in
the pleasure of eating the fruit of the Father's will. At such
moments, there is not loneliness but desolation - not the outward
desolation such as came through the three days' loss but an inner
desolation that is probably so deep as to be beyond the expression
of tears. Some joys are so intense that they provoke not even a
smile; so there are some griefs that never create a tear. Mary's
dolor at the burial of Our Lord was probably of that kind. If she
could have wept, it would have been a release from the tension;
but here the only tears were red, in the hidden garden of her
heart! One cannot think of any dolor after this; it was the last
of the sacraments of grief. The Divine Sword could will no other
thrusts beyond this, either for Himself or for her. It had run
into two hearts up to the very hilt; and when that happens, one is
beyond all human consolations. In the former dolor, at least there
was the consolation of the body; now even that is gone. Calvary
was like the bleak silence of a church on Good Friday when the
Blessed Sacrament has been removed. One can merely stand guard at
a tomb." (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)

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